Israel suggestions?

My wife and I will be heading to Israel in a couple weeks to visit her parents, so I figured I'd see if anybody here has some recommendations for restaurants while we're there...

Her parents live in Haifa, and we'll likely spend some time in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and northern Israel during our stay. Her parents very adventurous, and keep kosher. We do not in any which way keep kosher, and are much more adventurous. Looking for all ranges of stuff from falafel/shwarma dives to interesting high end cuisine. And I fantasize that there's some speakeasy-like rib joint in a seedy part of town near the port... anything like that?

Highly recommend eating at Machneyuda in Jerusalem! But you'll need to make a reservation well in advance as Machneyuda is extremely popular.

http://www.2eat.co.il/eng/machne-yuda/

http://www.fodors.com/world/africa-and- ... 82191.html

We also enjoyed Chakra in Jerusalem very, very much.

http://www.chakra-rest.com/AboutEng.aspx

Finally, we had an excellent meal at Adom in the Jerusalem courtyard.

http://www.frommers.com/destinations/je ... 59189.html


For Tel Aviv, we liked Nana in the Neve Tzedek neighborhood.

http://www.telavivme.com/Restaurants/pl ... Restaurant

Also in the Tel Aviv Seaport, for fine dining, our meal at Mul Yam was excellent (but pricey).

http://www.mulyam.com/indexEn.html

Surprisingly, Piccola Pasta was one of our favorite meals while in Tel Aviv!

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_R ... trict.html

Café Batia was fun for Jewish specialties like Matzoh Ball soup, Knedelach, Chulent, Gefiltefish, etc.

http://www.fodors.com/world/africa-and- ... 52554.html

In Old Jaffa, definitely try the Abulafia Bakery. Amazing!

Here is a response/trip report I sent to a friend of a friend, in between our trip this June and his trip around now.

For breakfasts, we only ate at the hotels. They were always buffets, and included in our room rates. I had heard raves about Israeli hotel breakfasts and still wasn't too excited, since I don't usually like buffets or spending a lot of time on breakfast when traveling. I was wrong! This is the only culture I've experienced with a large yet healthy breakfast. I really enjoyed the breakfast veggies, salads, cheeses, and yogurts, and very rarely ate the pastries, bagels and such seemingly there just for Americans, or hot dishes, with the exception of an occasional taste of shakshouka.

Our lunches were "street food" fare of falafels, hummos, schwarma, or for some, schnitzel, from small shops and stands. In addition to the toppings (eggplant, onions, Jerusalem salad, hot sauce, tahini) the staff will apply to order, there is usually a "salad bar" included with your selection, which in our experience was a few bowls of pickled veggies you can take as you wish. Ordering fries ("chips") on the falafel or schwarma sandwich seemed to be a popular trend, especially from Americans, but after one try, I liked them better separate, although I think tahini does make a good dipping sauce for fries. These sandwiches started feeling heavy after a couple of days, even without fries, so we learned most places offer platters without bread, or smaller portions. I don't remember any of the specific places we went, as they were mostly just picked by our guide along the way. He also did much of the ordering for us, to keep things moving quicker, and because many of the menus were only in Hebrew (and occasionally in Arabic). We had an accidental (our guide hadn't been there) outstanding first lunch at a hummos stand next to a large gas station across the street from the Tank Museum (Yad La'Shiryon) in Latrun, a suburb of Tel Aviv. This was the best pita of our trip!

The dinners I remember by name were Susana restaurant, and the Eat With underground restaurant in Tel Aviv. In Jerusalem, we went to: Adom (translates to "Red" so some people call it that; same restaurant mentioned in the above post) at the newly-opened The Station complex (open air shopping/restaurant venue in an old train station), Dolphin Yam (http://www.rest.co.il/seadolphin; recommended by an American friend of my cousin, the fish was fresh-tasting and with many options), and Spagetim, an Italian spot on Jaffa Street. Of the bricks and mortars places, I think they were all good, and good representations of the local fare. I wouldn't consider any of them destination spots, but if you are nearby, they are all worthy spots. The possible exception might be Adom, which seems to be catching on as one of the hot new spots in Jerusalem, and has some adventurous options on the menu (my husband had the veal brains and loved them).

I highly recommend the underground site, Eat With. Our hosts were Chef David, and his wife, Naomi. They told us they can be identified as "Eat With David", but in the event there is more than one "Eat With David" in Israel, you can confirm that the chef's wife is Naomi. They cooked a Shabbat dinner for our group of 12, with homemade pita, hummos, and salad starters, a meat pie first course, a chicken entree, and baked apple dessert. Our guide loves wine, so we had stopped at his favorite shop in Tel Aviv and purchased several bottles to bring to dinner. While not terribly creative food from Chicago underground standards, it was a perfect meal for our group, welcoming the Sabbath at the table of warm and welcoming hosts, in their home.

In Jerusalem, the Mahane Yehuda market would make my "not to be missed" list for any foodie. We went on our last day and brought back halvah from Halvah Kingdom, spices and pistachios from attractive stands we don't remember by name, if they had one, and had a falafel sandwich from Levy and a sit down lunch at Azura. These were both recommended in this Saveur article from 2009: http://www.saveur.com/article/Travels/Jerusalem-Mix

Here are some thoughts from a friend who used to live in Israel and knows me well, although we did not make it to most of these:

"First of all, for the coffee lover in me, go to all the great cafes and order "cafe hafuch" , which is latte--hands down beats American lattes.
A chain restaurant is called Cafe Cafe. They have a breakfast for two (although i think its served all day long) which is delicious. It comes on a platter with cheeses, salad, yummy bread, spreads, coffee. I am also a fan of Cafe Aroma, a similar chain throughout the country, for coffee, pastries, and sandwiches.
Off the beaten tourist track is a small restaurant called Cafe Pu'ah next to the yafo flea market- definitely not fancy but the food was great and it's a very local, hip Tel Aviv crowd. While I was eating there Ahinoam Nini was there too.
Off the typical American tourist trail is Ein Hod which is a small artist village south of Haifa. It's in a gorgeous location and has beautiful galleries. You walk around the village and wander into the artists homes/galleries. Above Ein Hod is an Arab village called Ein Hud (although I guess you'd need a car to get to to these). We ate at the most amazing restaurant there (maybe called "haBayit"- the house) where there's no menu. You sit down and they start bringing you item after item and its whatever the Mom decides to cook that day, and you have no idea what's coming next but it's all original middle eastern/arab and yummy. The Mom sits out back cooking all day while the siblings serve the food. Go with a big appetite cause its all you can eat and wasn't cheap.
Also south of Haifa is Zichron Yaakov which has a great street that is filled with stores and restaurants. Full of people out in the evenings. There are also a lot of wineries there, especially a few small boutique wineries.
In the Galil, I've heard about Ein Kamonim where they make their own goat cheese and have a great restaurant, but never been there.
If you want out of the downtown area of Jerusalem, head to the German Colony and Baka for great cafes and little stores and beautiful old stone houses. Nice cafe restaurant there called Caffit.
Quaint neighborhood to wander around in downtown Jerusalem (but not the Old City) is Nachalat Shiva. Go up off the main area of shops and cafes and deep into the little side streets to see beautiful old stone homes, now being renovated.
Angels bakery in Jerusalem makes great pita--well, any pita in Israel is good."

And from another friend, who lives in New York, I believe these are all in Tel Aviv:
"Here's my current restaurant list: HaSalon, 8 Ma'Avar Yavok St MiznonN 23 Ibn Gabirol Jaffa Tel Aviv Restaurant, 98 Yigal Alon St Mizlala, Nahalat Binyamin 57 Kitchen Market @ Namal port (also has cooking classes) Cordelia-30 Yeffet St (Chef Nir Zook), cordelia.co.il Messa, 19 Ha'arba'a St, messa.co.il North Abraxas, 40 Lilienblum St Orna and Ellla, 33 Sheinkin St Shulchan, 73 Rothschild Blvd. Herbert Samuel-6 Kaufman St Abu-Hasan's Ali-Karavan-1 HaDolphin St Brasserie, 70 Ibn Gvirol St; brasserie.co.il Uri Buri - AkkoBarbounia Dr. Shakshuka, 3 Beit Eshel St Old Man and the Sea, 83 Kedem St "

Finally, here are a few links to articles I brought with me:
http://goisrael.about.com/od/DiningandN ... -Spots.htm http://www.touristisrael.com/unusual-tel-aviv/946/ http://www.time.com/time/travel/citygui ... 74,00.html (especially look at #3, Ali Karavan Hummus, and #6, Hot Tables, with the caveat that this was an article from 2010)

I hope this information is helpful and not too overwhelming. Please let me know if you have questions. Have a wonderful trip! -Shari

Smassey wrote:For breakfasts, we only ate at the hotels. They were always buffets, and included in our room rates.

like Smazzey, we too only at the hotel buffet, most mornings I was very content to have hummus (always stellar), a piece of pita, and fresh fruits, perhaps a bit of yogurt.

Heading to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem next month. Any more recommendations?

viewtopic.php?p=438515#p438515

A year later, the things stuck in my head are hummus and orange juice at Abu Kamel (at lunchtime; I found the dinner shift to be slightly weaker on repeat visits), and mutabak at Zalatimo Sweets, if you can find it. Both are reasonably close to each other on either side of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City. There was also a magical chicken restaurant (whole chickens on spits, slathered in sumac) near the Cardo that was jaw-dropping, but I never found my way back to get the name.

Tel Aviv, the consensus from a group just returned whom I'll see again there next winter is Abu Hassan for hummus and Gedera 26 for Yemenite farm-to-table (which is much of Israel, really).

turkob wrote: Any more recommendations?

Have your meal ideas planned for the Sabbath.

Similar to on Christmas day when my Jewish friends see a movie and go to Chinatown for a meal, Mrs Willie & I found ourselves on a Sabbath at our hotel in Jerusalem wondering what to do about dinner. Normally I'm very well planned with dining/activity options but left this dinner open thinking how hard can it be to find a restaurant to try? Bad move, we walked for a LONG time before finally finding a Chinese restaurant open. God bless the Chinese restaurant owners, they are always open when the majority of the locals are recognizing a religious date.

I'm assuming Tel Aviv is much different in terms of # of restaurants being open on Sabbath but again, this in only an assumption.